ASRock launches socket 939 board

ASRock, the master of oddball motherboards, has done it again. The company has launched a socket 939 board using Nvidia's GeForce 7050 chipset combined with the 630A MCP. The company seems to specialize in motherboards for people who are looking for the most odd combinations of chipsets and CPUs; but this time they might be onto a winner.

The board takes all the good bits from the GeForce 7050 chipset, it has integrated graphics with DVI and D-sub output and the DVI connector suppotrs HDCP. The board also features onboard Gigabit Ethernet, four SATA connectors with RAID support, a single IDE connector, four rear USB 2.0 ports with headers for a further eight ports, a parallel port and 7.1-channel HD audio.

There is also a single x16 PCIe slot, a x1 PCIe slot and two PCI slots on this mATX board. It has four DIMM slots for DDR 400 memory due to the socket 939 CPU's from AMD only supporting DDR memory.

Considering how many people upgrade their computers and get left with bits that don't really end up being used, we can see this board becoming popular with those looking for a small board for a second or third PC, especially if it's going to be used as an HTPC or a file server.